State Guide · 8 ABA Schools · 509 data 2025
Massachusetts law school requirements
Massachusetts has 8 ABA-approved law schools, with LSAT medians from 152 to 174. Together they took 39,744 completed applications, made 9,527 offers and filled 2,570 first-year seats in 2025. Every number on this page comes from those schools' own ABA Standard 509 reports.
ABA schools
8
1 public, 7 private
LSAT median range
152 to 174
across the state
First-year seats
2,570
from 39,744 applications
Tuition range
$41,565 to $77,100
full time, non-resident
The 8 ABA-approved Massachusetts law schools
| School | Type | LSAT | GPA | Accept | 1L | Tuition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Harvard Law SchoolCambridge | Private | 174 | 3.96 | 9.2% | 579 | $77,100 |
| Boston UniversityBoston | Private | 170 | 3.88 | 12.1% | 238 | $69,870 |
| Boston CollegeNewton | Private | 168 | 3.83 | 8.5% | 219 | $72,380 |
| Northeastern UniversityBoston | Private | 164 | 3.77 | 24.2% | 283 | $65,652 |
| Suffolk UniversityBoston | Private | 155 | 3.58 | 61.9% | 544 | $62,610 |
| New England Law | BostonBoston | Private | 153 | 3.37 | 61.3% | 451 | $62,896 |
| Western New England UniversitySpringfield | Private | 153 | 3.27 | 51.9% | 115 | $50,320 |
| University of Massachusetts School of Law-DartmouthNorth Dartmouth | Public | 152 | 3.36 | 52.2% | 141 | $41,565 |
What the state data shows
Harvard Law School reports the highest LSAT median in the state at 174, with a 3.96 GPA median and a 9.2% acceptance rate on 8,872 applications. The spread of 22 LSAT points between the top and bottom of the state means a single score can be a stretch at one Massachusetts school and comfortably above median at another. The national median of school medians is 159, so Massachusetts's strongest reported median sits 15 points above it.
1 of the 8 schools charge residents less than non-residents, so residency status is worth checking before you apply. The lowest published resident tuition belongs to University of Massachusetts School of Law-Dartmouth at $31,766 a year, where the median full-time grant is $15,000. Across the state, published non-resident tuition runs from $41,565 to $77,100, a gap of $35,535 a year before fees, living costs or scholarship.
4 of the 8 schools reporting bar outcomes beat the weighted average pass rate in the jurisdictions where their graduates sat. Harvard Law School reports the state's highest first-time pass rate at 97.86% from 608 first-time takers, against a 83.44% jurisdiction average. Bar admission is granted state by state, so the jurisdiction you intend to practise in matters as much as the school.
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Other state guides
Data: ABA Standard 509 Information Report (2025), published for consumer disclosure, retrieved from the ABA Required Disclosures portal on 2026-09-01, with bar passage figures from the same portal's Bar Passage Outcomes report for the class of 2024. Restated in our own structure; no ABA document or file is reproduced here.